Ardvi Monastery Of Saint Hovhannes

St. Hovhan Odzneci or Srbanes monastery of Ardvi (VIII-XVII centuries) includes two churches and a belfry. Nearby there are also cross-stones, a tetrahedral monument, ruins of household buildings and dwellings.
In 726 Hovhan Odzneci decided to leave his catholicosal activities and returned from Dvin to Odzun. Since he was a celibate monk and Odzun was a populated area, he couldn't stay there. Instead, he decided to build a monastery a bit higher from a village that stood 6 km farther, to the south-west from Odzun. He said, 'Sa ara, Dviny tvi' (This I got, Dvin I gave) which later became Ardvi.
Hovhan Odzneci's gravestone is in the backyard of the monastery and the sepulchre is inside the church. Odzneci is the author of numerous sharakans (similar to psalms) and religious works, however his most notable work is the collection of canons of the Armenian church.
On the way to Srbanes there are two long stones inside the rocks that remind of dragons with water coming out of them. The place is called 'Snake's navel' and the water there is healing. According to a legend, two dragons approached the village through the hill slopes during the Holy Mass. Odzneci, who was serving the mass at that moment, crossed the dragons and they got tied until the end of the mass. After the mass he hit dragons' heads with his cane and said, 'You shall turn into stone, source shall come out of your heart and you shall heal the sick'. The dragons turn into stone and the source is still there today.
According to another folk legend, an elderly wise man taught his seven students at a school which stood at a coomb. One day a dragon appeared at the cliffs and everything went numb from his voice. Seeing this, a passerby woman carrying a jug turned into stone. Learning about this, the wise man sent one of his students to check what was going on. The student became the victim of the dragon and the same happened with the other six students. The wise man went looking for his pupils and came across the dragon. He hit it with his cane and turned into stone. Locals say that the woman with a jug was standing there until 75 years ago when the villagers pulled the rocks down to build a cattle shed.
There is a tree in Srbanes's yard. From afar it looks like an ordinary tree, however when you come closer, you can see that it has grown on top of the gravestones.
Ardvi monastery is also famous for being a shooting place for a renown Armenian director Sergei Parajanov's movie 'The Color of Pomegranates'.

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